Request for critiques on my collaborative story

Hey all! Being new (and a writer), I was encouraged to check the Writer's Block out. While I'd love to ramble on about my signature work (see signature), I figure I should start with something far more manageable for this community to respond accordingly.

Brevity Works

The story is a prose and poetry experiment where I (and any other writers) attempt to write with no adverbs or adjectives. To that end, I'm hoping to keep the narrative simple and avoid things such as Complexity Addiction or generally going into the direction of the TV series Lost — otherwise, I have no plans with it. With that in mind, here are my questions for you all:

1) Is it entertaining to read? Does it engage you? 2) Do you think the style premise of "no adjectives/adverbs" works here? Have you found any blatant slip-ups with either sneaking in the writing? 3) Where do you feel the narrative should and shouldn't go? Where could it stand to be more simple? Do you feel revenge is a good plot hook for the main character? Should the story solidify as more of a specific genre (such as western) or do you think it should continue to try and be vague and around the board with its genre classification?

Thank you for any feedback you can give! Obviously, free free to ramble on with anything on the matter, even if I didn't specifically ask about it.

1) I'd read it if I wa really bored. Like, not bored enough to read Twilight, but I'd watch Tenten Toppa Gurren Lagan before I'd read this, so it doesn't particularly engage me, no.

2) I found no slip-ips. And I only read the first few, like two or so, posts, but judging by them alone, I'd have to say no- it doesn't work for me. It just seems a bit... bland.

3)Cant really comment on the first bit. I will say, I liked the lack of an easily-defined genre so far- perhaps you should stick with that.

One question- what's up with the poetry?

Also, welcome to Writer's Block. Sorry about the others, they mustn't have much to offer up. Neither did I :/

edited 29th Jan '11 5:21:53 AM by CyganAngel

I seem to be missing something. There seems to be only one page in that thread, with less than 10 posts.

... No, oops, my bad. My autocheck seems to have corrected 'twe' to 'twenty' instead of two.

Fixing now.

Oh, okay then.

1)It's somewhat entertaining and engaging. I found it pretty mediocre. I will read any new posts, you've got that (which is very important by itself), but I'm not having great expectations for this one, no offense.

2)To be honest, I wouldn't have noticed it if you hadn't told us. I did notice that the writing style was short and simple, but that's it. I don't have any problems with it so far.

3) As for where the narrative should go, I can only say make it go somewhere unexpected. You've got a nice not-quite-western setting and tone, just keep it up. No idea about Jeb's motivation, and I already answered the other one.

Other thoughts: I found the way the "team" was formed way too quick and abrupt. Jeb's altitude changes from "I'm gonna kill you" to "Okay, we're partners now" in about a second. And the way the woman was shoehorned into the team felt really "artificial". I could almost hear you saying: "Alright, I've now got a team. Let's get to the plot now!"

Also, your work reminds me greatly of The Dark Tower, for reasons that are obvious if you've read it. (That's most probably a good thing.)

Cygan Angel: Oh geez, if it's that close to Twilight, I'll definitely need to reconsider the characters and plot! While I'm not going to give up on the writing exercise, it does let me know that I have to be extra-careful on, well, everything, though it'll still be rather Hemmingway-ish even at its best. I'm glad the attempt at making genre hard to define works though. The poetry, by the way, was just my attempt to try something different and hopefully gather interest in other writers who may have just wanted to write poetry (ballad, etc.) rather than prose.

Dealan: No offense taken! This is a writing exercise first and an attempt at any particular story second. I'm glad to hear that you at least find it interesting enough to read any new content! I'm actually quite glad you didn't notice the lack of adverbs and adjectives — to me, that says the lack of them in of itself isn't distracting. The pseudo-western tone mostly comes from what I felt was necessity (westerns are generally bare in tone, which I felt the writing exercise would fit with best), though if the story were to take any genre to heart, it'd probably be a western. Yes, I've read Dark Tower, and while I quite liked that series, I was hoping to avoid a Dark Tower clone, haha!

As for the "team" formation, I agree. My intent was never for a team to have really formed, only that Cal and Tess would be around him (and only when it became apparent that they wouldn't serve more minor roles). Cal was intended to be quite antagonistic, actually, and I honestly had no plans at the time for Tess. However, as with any collaborative work, things never turn out as you expect, so you have to roll with things as best as one can.

Thank you both for your feedback! I'll probably post some other works soon that I've written in the past to gauge some more what sort of feedback I get from this community. :)